Field of the Invention
This application relates to remote controlled piloting, and more particularly to a system and method for collision detection and avoidance for unmanned aerial vehicles.
Description of the Related Art
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone or quadricopter, or by several other names, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. The flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy: either under remote control by a human operator, or fully or intermittently autonomously, by onboard computers.
Drones may be used for racing games or competition that consist in following a path that is defined like a slalom by single or double gates or posts, and by a finish line. In order to win the race, it is essential to go fast. And in order to save time, it is necessary to turn around the posts as closely as possible while conserving a maximum amount of kinetic energy, i.e. while traveling relatively fast. Outside of racing, drones can also perform advanced aerial maneuvers such as loops, split-s, Immelmann, barrel rolls, figure eights, etc.
With present drones, these maneuvers require the user to be skilled and experienced because the mode of piloting requires the user to use several different controls in combination in order to perform these maneuvers. In addition, drones are often flown in the vicinity of various natural and manmade obstacles, of which the drones may crash into.
Drones are both expensive and fragile. A collision, even at low speeds, can cause serious damage or complete destruction to the drone, from the initial impact or from the subsequent impact with the ground. Even an experienced pilot, when performing high risk maneuvers, will put a drone in danger of collision.